March 2022

It’s been a while since I’ve painted much. You have to be in the right emotional space to create like that. And not too busy with other things! But in recent weeks the Spring flowers have been calling me and I’ve pushed myself over the line and wet my brush.

A new project/chapter

“Creativity is about play and a kind of willingness to go with your intuition. It’s crucial to an artist. If you know where you are going and what you are going to do, why do it?” Frank Gehry

This sums up nicely what I’ve been doing over the last few weeks. There’s nothing like a wide open calendar free of outside obligations to prompt some creative play. (I’m calling this my silver-lining having had all my work furloughed or postponed)

Early in 2019 I went to Malaysia with my daughter for a wonderful week full of culture like nothing I’d experienced before so this recent creative playing has been a wonderful chance to pick over the zillions of photos I took, pulling out images, colours and sights that tickle my arty-farty bones! I’m just responding to whatever makes my heart sing and going from there – I’m jumping from sketchbook to computer to lino-cutting to embroidery as I like and it’s wonderful fun to just play freely.

This is a little lino block I made after drawing some details from a beautiful silk textile at the National Textile Museum in Kuala Lumpur.